Asula (Asula)

Dwelling, settlement, urban community, any populated place. Lit. place of settlement, related to the verb asuma, to settle (or, in Olonets Karelian, azuo, to prepare or have offspring) and hence asum. Estonian geopolitical statisticians have the ranking thereof down to a fine art... Below a population density of 20 (in villages) or 2000 (in towns), the asula is designated as kääbus (dwarf or, in boxing parlance, bantam). They then grow through the following stages – jugu (stunted), taru (hive/buzzing), väike (small), siire (transitional), suur (large), kasa (large-heap), hiid (giant) and rait (colossal [over 5M for towns]) – before becoming mega-cities, a state yet to be reached by certain communities in, for example, Jõgevamaa.